Compleat Traveller in Black

by John Brunner

  The pelts had gone. Or, to be more exact, some of them had gone away and returned – but in unusual fashion: they had been cut into coats for the nobles, and now enveloped impressive paunches and bosoms with the assistance of gilt girdles. Moreover, half the mirrors were fly-specked and not a few were cracked, while worst of all some of the slabs of marble forming the floor had been prized up to expose crude foundations of rubble – a rumor having run around as to the efficacy of marble for sacrificial altars – and on an irregularity due to this cause, in an ill-lit corner, Lord Vengis had twisted his ankle en route to his throne.

  This hall was a condensation of the trouble afflicting the whole of Ys. The harbors that once had swallowed the twice-daily ocean tides were blocked with stinking silt; grass grew on the stone moles, as in the wheel-ruts on the fine old roads leading away from the city – at least, according to report; none of the personages present could vouch for the assertion, all having declined to venture out of Ys since things took this turn for the worse. So also in the gardens of the great houses a plant like, but not identical with, mistletoe had spread over the handsome trees, letting fall a horrid sticky fruit on those who walked beneath; in the deep sweet-water wells servants claimed that they heard ominous voices, so that now they refused to let down buckets for fear of drawing up those who spoke; last week’s market had reduced to two old men squabbling over a cracked earthen pot and a comb of dirty wild honey. …

  Lord Vengis glowered at the company, and they fell silent by degrees. Their attendants moved, silent as shadows – which some of them were – to the double doors of entrance, closed them, barred them against all intrusion with the necessary charms, for this was no discussion that the common people might be permitted to overhear.

  With the clanging down of the final bar, one leapt to his feet at the end of the front rank of gilded chairs, uttering a groan and cramming his fingers in his mouth. All eyes turned.

  “Fool, Bardolus!” Lord Vengis rapped. “What ails you?”

  “In that mirror!” Bardolus gibbered, trying to point and finding his shaky arm disobedient to his will. “I saw in the mirror –”

  “What? What?” chorused a dozen fearful voices.

  Bardolus was a small man whose manner was never better than diffident; he was accounted clever, but in a sly fashion that had won him few friends and none that would trust him. He said now, mopping sweat, “I don’t know. I saw something in the mirror that was not also in this hall.”

  Time hesitated in its course, until Lord Vengis gave a harsh laugh and slapped the arm of his throne.

  “You’ll have to grow accustomed to manifestations like that!” he gibed. “So long as the things stay behind the mirror, what’s to worry you? It’s when they emerge into the everyday world that you must look out. Why, only the other day, when I was in my thaumaturgical cabinet testing a certain formula – But enough of that.” He coughed, and behind his polite covering hand glanced to see whether his words had had the desired effect. They had, even though the episode to which he referred was an invention. True, he had spent much time in his cabinet; true, he had rehearsed many formulae; alas, nothing so far had come of his efforts, not even a harmless specter in a mirror.

  Still, that would change. One could tell by the very feel of the air. There were forces in it that no man could put a name to, and sometimes scalps prickled as before a thunderstorm.

  “We are here for a reason you know,” he said after an impressive pause. “We are agreed on the sole course open to us. We admit that modern Ys stands on the shoulders of great men and women. Yet to what has their ambition led us? Unkind fate has burdened us with such difficulties as they never encountered. We eat stale bread and rancid meat where they gorged pies running with gravy and soft delicious fruits from the ends of the earth. We drink brackish water, none too clean, where they enjoyed wine and mead, and beer like brown crystal!

  “We have concluded that for all their – admitted-greatness, they are responsible, not us! We did not ask to be born at a time when our trees rot, our crops wither, our harbor is blocked. In every way they are responsible: for siting Ys where it stands, for breeding children to inherit such a miserable legacy!”

  “Aye!” came a rumble of assent from around the hall.

  “Some fainthearts, some ignorant fools, have argued against us,” Vengis went on, warming to a speech he had not intended to deliver. “These, of course, were baseborn, lacking the insight which is the birthright of nobility. Jacques the scrivener, for example, would have had us turn to with hoes and shovels and clear the harbor – and if hoes and shovels lacked, with our bare hands!”

  This time the response lay between a shudder and a chuckle.

  “What’s become of Jacques, by the way?” someone asked audibly.

  “Does it matter?” Vengis countered, drawing his beetling brows together. “We know we are adopting the right course. We have decided that we must employ more potent tools than crude – ah – agricultural implements to cope with so massive a disaster. We must, in short, restore all our fortunes, and the splendor of our city, and root out once for all the disaffection among the rabble spread by such as Jacques, by exploiting the mightiest means available to us. Magically, by decree of the will, by harnessing supernatural forces, we shall again make Ys the envy of the world!”

  A roar of approval followed, and a barrage of clapping. Unnoticed in the shadows, one listener alone did not applaud; instead, he stood leaning on his staff, shaking his head from time to time.

  “Let us have news, then – encouraging news of our progress!” Vengis cried. “I call first upon Dame Seulte, around whose home last time I rode by I could not help noticing an aura pregnant with remarkable phenomena.”

  Silence. At length a portly woman near the back of the hall rose – with some difficulty, for her weight – and spoke.

  “Dame Seulte, as you know, is my close neighbor, and as she is not here I think perhaps I ought to mention that yesterday I found her in high spirits and confident of success in her experiments. She had obtained a freewill gift of a child to offer to – well, to a creature best not named directly. When I met her she was leading the pretty thing home on a leash of green leather. Such a charming sight!”

  “Dame Rosa!” said a young man from nearer the front, turning on his chair. “A freewill gift? Are you entirely sure?”

  And his companion, a pale girl of no more than eighteen in a brown velvet dress, said doubtfully, “My maid referred to a fire at Dame Seulte’s house this morning …”

  Vengis slapped the arm of his throne again, making a sound as sharp as a gavel’s rap. He said sternly, “No more defeatist talk if you please, Lady Vivette!”

  “But are you sure it was a freewill gift?” persisted the young man at Vivette’s side.

  Dame Rosa said stiffly, “Dame Seulte had promised to treat the child as she would her own, and the parents were poor and hungry; they parted with it willingly. She said so.”

  “Then there was undoubtedly a fire at her home this morning,” said the young man, and shrugged. “I warned her – I did warn her, more than once! Our copy of the book she conjured from includes a leaf that Dame Seulte’s lacks, and on it the authorities are cited by the dozen. Ingredients obtained by deception, it states plainly, are of no avail when one strives to bind a pyrophoric elemental.”

  There was a stunned pause. Dame Seulte, after all, had only been trying to achieve a comparatively low-grade manifestation.

  “I have more cheerful news,” said a sweet enticing voice from the opposite side of the assembly. They turned gratefully; this was Lady Meleagra, whose eyes like sapphires, lips like rose-petals, and skin like fresh snow overlying frozen blood had broken hearts for ten of her twenty-one years. As Eadwil had once done in Ryovora – though she was unaware of that precedent – she had purchased her ability on terms. Herself, she had not yet suffered unduly in consequence; she was, though, constrained to impose a most regrettable proviso on anyone who craved to share
the pleasures of her bedchamber. It was an efficacious precaution against undesired supernatural intervention, but it had signally reduced the number of her suitors.

  “I sense a change in Ys,” she mused aloud. “A great wonder has overtaken our city. So far I do not know its precise nature, but the fact is indisputable. See!”

  She extended one graceful arm, swathed in white lace so fine her skin tinted it pink, and in the central aisle dividing the company a thing appeared. It was dark, and it writhed; apart from that it had no describable attributes save two glowing eyes alive with hatred. It lasted half a minute before it faded, and at its going the air was permeated by a dank steamy odor against which those foresighted enough to have brought them buried their noses in bouquets of flowers.

  By degrees a clamor arose, and on all sides the nobles strove to show they had been equally successful. “Look!” cried Messer Hautnoix, and between his hands he strung a chain of gleaming bubbles from nowhere, and again, and yet a third time before the glamor faded. And: “See!” cried Dame Faussein, beating a drum made of a gourd capped either end with tattooed skin from a drowned sailor; this made the hall pitch-black for as long as it sounded, and all present had the eerie sensation of being adrift in an infinite void. And: “Watch!” bellowed rough old Messer d’Icque, spreading a scarlet cloth at the full stretch of both arms; on the cloth, a mouth opened and uttered five sonorous words that no one present understood.

  Smiles greeted these achievements, and loud approbation gave place to a babble of inquiry as to means. “Five nights drunk under a gallows!” boasted Messer Hautnoix – “A day and a night and a day kissing the mouth of the man who bequeathed his skin!” bragged Dame Faussein – “Doing things to a goat that I can’t discuss with ladies present,” muttered Messer d’Icque behind his hand.

  “But Ub-Shebbab came to me when I did no more than whisper his name,” said Meleagra, and at this disturbing news those closest to her chair drew aside as far as they could without appearing rude.

  Vengis on his high throne joined neither in the praise nor in the questioning; his heavy-jowled face remained as set as stone. Had he not submitted himself to worse indignities? Had he not made pledges that in retrospect caused him to quail? And what had derived from his struggles? Nothing! Not even a pretty tricksiness like Messer Hautnoix’s bubbles!

  He thumped on his chair-side again, and cut through the chatter with a furious roar.

  “Enough! Enough! Are you children early out of school, that you disgrace our meeting with mere gossip? How far do these cantrips advance us to our goal? That’s the question!”

  Visibly embarrassed, the company subsided into a phase of asking one another with their eyes whether any would be bold enough to claim progress in their central problem. At first they avoided looking at Meleagra; then, no other offer being forthcoming, they took that plunge and were rewarded with a sigh and a shake of the head.

  “As I thought!” Vengis crowed in scorn. “You’re overwhelmed with superficial spectacle, and have forgotten the urgent purpose confronting us. Next time you go to conjure, first ask this: if I succeed, what comes by way of benefit? Can I eat the outcome? Can I put it on my back, or mend my roof with it? Best of all, will it mend my and others’ roofs without additional instruction? In fine, how will it serve not only me, but the nobility and commonalty of Ys?”

  He glared at the now fidgety assembly. “It’s not going to be easy, I know that well. I’ve had no success to speak of, myself. But at least I haven’t been diverted down superfluous byways!”

  At the back of the hall the one standing in shadow shook his head anew. Here truly was a company of fools, and chief of them was their chief Vengis: a man of consuming arrogance and vanity, blind to his faults and proud beyond description. This being so …

  He touched one of the mirrors with his staff. It split with a whimper like a dying bird and heads whisked to seek the source of the sound. Vengis, astonished, half rose from his seat.

  “What are you doing here?” he thundered. “Who let you in without my leave?”

  The traveller in black advanced along the aisle dividing the company until he was face to face with Vengis, and there was that in his eyes which stifled further speech prior to the answering of that double question.

  He said at last, “As for what I’m doing here – why, listening to and pondering on what you’ve said. As for leave being granted me to join you, I go where my presence is required, whether or not those whom I attend upon desire it.”

  The ranked nobles held their breath. This was the utterance of one holding an authority they dared not challenge.

  “What – what do you want of us?” whispered Vengis when he had regained some of his composure.

  “Say rather what you want of me,” the traveller riposted with a sardonic cock of his head. “From the confusion of your dispute I’ve been unable to make it out. Put it in plain words. That is, if you have any clear idea of your ambitions …?”

  There was a gently insulting turn to that last phrase. Vengis bridled.

  “Of course we do!” he blustered. “Have you not seen the pitiable pass to which our fair city is reduced?”

  “I have,” acknowledged the black-garbed intruder. “And as nearly as I can discern, you hold your ancestors to blame.”

  “We do so!” Vengis snapped. “And we crave to make them rectify their crime. We strive to call them back, that they may behold the ruin they’ve bequeathed us, and compel them to set matters right.”

  “Say nothing to me of compulsion,” warned the traveller. “I am acquainted better with free choice. … Collectively and voluntarily, you have agreed this plan?”

  There was a general cry of confirmation.

  “What then restrains you from action?”

  “What do you think?” That from Bardolus, half frantic with the tension of the moment. “For years we’ve quested after the power to bring about this end, and so far all we’ve managed to achieve is a few minor manifestations and several personal calamities!”

  “Such as the one that overtook Dame Seulte?”

  “Ah … Well, yes, I suppose!”

  “Despite which ominous event, Vengis has expressed the common desire of you all?” said the traveller with very great sadness, casting his gaze to the furthest corners of the company.

  “Aye!” came a chorus of replies.

  “As you wish,” said the traveller, “so be it.” And departed.

  IV

  Where he went, none of them saw. He passed among them swift as thought and silent as a shadow, and they had no more stomach for their consultations.

  Yet they felt a lightness, a sense of promise, as they called the servants to unbar the doors and made their several ways towards their homes. The streets by which they passed seemed more crowded than of late, and not a few of them had the impression that they recognized among the throng a familiar face, a known gait, or the cut of a distinctive garment. However, such fancies were of a piece with the general mood, and served mainly to heighten the taut anticipation they had brought away from the Hall of State.

  “What think you of Dame Seulte’s fate?” said the Lady Vivette to her companion – who was also her brother, but they had judged that an advantage in making their earlier experiments. She spoke as their carriage creaked and jolted into the courtyard of their ancestral home; behind, as strong retainers forced them to, gate-hinges screamed for rust and lack of oil.

  “I think she was unwise,” her brother said. His name was Ormond to the world, but recently he had adopted another during a midnight ritual, and Vivette knew what it was and held some power over him in consequence.

  “Do you believe we have been gifted by this – this personage?” Vivette inquired. “I have a feeling, myself, that perhaps we have.”

  Ormond shrugged. “We can but put the matter to the test. Shall we do so now, or wait until after dinner?”

  “Now!” Vivette said positively.

  So, duly, they made their prepara
tions: donning fantastical garments that contained unexpected lacunae, and over them various organic items relinquished by their original owners, such as a necklace of children’s eyes embedded in glass for Vivette and a mask made from a horse’s head for Ormond. So arrayed, they repaired to a room in the highest tower of their mansion, where by custom deceased heads of their family had, since generations ago, been laid in state for a day and a night and a day before interment.

  There, within a pentacle bounded by four braziers and a pot of wax boiling over a lamp, they indulged in some not unpleasurable pastimes, taking care to recite continually turn and turn about a series of impressive cantrips. The room darkened as the work went on, and great excitement almost interrupted their concentration, but they clung to it, and …

  “Look!” whispered Vivette, and pointed to the catafalque removed to one corner of the room. Under black velvet draperies a form was lying – that of a man armed and armored.

  “Why!” cried Ormond. “Just so, in the picture downstairs, did Honorius our great-grandfather lie when he was awaiting burial!” Leaping to his feet, he tugged the velvet aside.

  Impassive, a steel visor confronted them. Vivette eased it open, and in the dark interior of the helmet eyes gleamed and a rush of fetid breath escaped. Stiffly, with vast effort, the occupant of the armor arose from the catafalque.

  “Come, my descendants, let me kiss you both,” said a rusty voice, and iron arms encircled them resistlessly. “What, have you no affection to your kinsman?”

  There was a hollow hideous chuckle as the embrace grew tighter; the necklace of eyes cracked like a handful of cobnuts, the horse mask fell thudding to the floor, and spittle-wet lips clamped on one mouth, then the other.